


Case 0161510: Injury Prone

by justawordwright



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Major Character Injury, Statement Fic, set in season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22746262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justawordwright/pseuds/justawordwright
Summary: Statement of Martha McAver, regarding a ring they bought in February 2012. Statement recorded direct from subject, 15th November, 2016.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Case 0161510: Injury Prone

Statement of Martha McAver, regarding a ring they bought in February 2012. Statement recorded direct from subject, 15th November, 2016. Statement begins.

I like interesting jewellery. Liked interesting jewellery, maybe now.

A year or so ago, it would have been pretty obvious just by looking at me. I'd always have on a couple of pieces, a necklace, some bangles, maybe a couple of rings or a hair clip and some earrings. People would joke you'd always be able to hear me coming, because you could hear me and my jewellery rattling from a mile away. I'd laugh, because it was true, and I never considered wearing any less.

Anyway, I like _interesting_ jewellery. Not the modern stuff, the mass produced, clinically boring silver-plated tin with a couple of lifeless diamonds set in. No, I liked my stuff to have character, to be unique, to feel special. That didn't always mean antique, though it often ended that way. Just characterful. Interesting.

It meant that I spent a lot of time nosing around in antique stores and charity shops - mostly charity shops to be honest, given the prices antique shops charge and they can be surprisingly good, they can get some surprisingly high end stuff, if you know where to go and a lot don't actually know the value of what they've found - looking for the little odd pieces they would get in. It was a slow process, building up a decent collection. You never knew what you could find - it could be just junk for weeks, awful art-deco plastic pieces or cheap nickel and fake rhinestones or overpriced replicas masquerading as the real thing; or you could find a run of half-a-dozen antique Victorian and Georgian solid silver pieces for an absolute steal in one afternoon. That was the thrill of it - the hunt. I loved it almost as much as I loved wearing what I bought.

Over the years I built up a few regulars, where I knew would often get good things. Morningside always had more upmarket stuff and Stockbridge had a little huddle of a particularly good Bethany, Red Cross and Shelter. Bethany shops tended to be good - eclectic in their stylings, and often quite a diverse stock, but there were almost always a few gems, and I remember seeing at least a couple of the local antique dealers poking around in the store by the Meadows. The road which was both Nicholson St and South Clark St had a number of charity shops, but other than the specialist Oxfam bookshop which would often display limited edition folios or first editions for prices in the hundreds in their window, they tended to be a little cheap and generic, located in the student area of town. There were enough close together though, and in the centre of the city, that I'd still tend to stick my head in quickly, just in case.

It was in one of these I found the ring. The British Heart Foundation on Nicholson Street. It was late February; it would have been the last Saturday of the month when I did my bi-monthly sweep.

So, the 25th then?

I guess so. Anyway, I'd done Stockbridge in the morning, and had returned to do my sweep of the city centre - Nicholson and South Clark St, then the little cluster of antique shops on Causewayside, there were four or five within a hundred meter stretch of road at one point, though they’ve now all started closing. I'd not had a particularly productive morning, the only thing that had tempted me had been a gold-plated broach in the shape of lily, with a spider-web pattern of turquoise enamelling. I wasn't buying it for nearly fifteen pounds though.

So I was a little bit frustrated when I came to the Heart Foundation shop on Nicholson Street, and wanted to move on quickly, to get to the richer pickings of Morningside. The Heart Foundation always has good, but busy displays, and I remember running my eye hastily over the clothes and books and knick-knacks, looking for the tell-tale glass cabinet. There was one, just by the door. The top two shelves had a couple of electronics in it, a camera, maybe some binoculars, I think. Anyway, the third shelf had a thin scatter of jewellery - a gold necklace, two pearl earrings, and the ring.

It wasn't a pretty ring by most standards. It was broad and heavy, a thick band of matt grey cast pewter, with a single stone set directly into the metal. The stone was ovular, and roughly cut, polished just enough to shine slightly under the light and hide the cut marks unless you looked particularly closely. It was almost opaque, a smoky grey-purple. I assumed amethyst or quartz, they tended to come in all sorts of colours.

When I went in to try it on, I discovered one other curious detail. The pewter had clearly been cast around stone, and it wasn't just the front that was exposed. There was a small circle of exposed amethyst on the inside too.

Actually, I don't know why I'm describing it to you, you could just take a look yourself.

It's still good to get the details described on tape. But... this is it, in the box?

Yes, have a look. Just... don't touch it. Don't touch it.

Very well.

The description given by Ms McAver is accurate. Do continue.

Well, it turned out the ring fitted pretty much perfectly, and it was only a quid or two so I bought it, and spent the rest of the day wearing it happily. I didn't buy anything else that day, but I was content with one good purchase. And that was it, the ring became a part of my regular dress and I got a lot of compliments on it, so that it became almost daily wear.

I liked it.

It was a normal ring. Ordinary. So normal that I never even stopped and thought ‘this is a perfectly normal ring’ because that would have involved wondering if it was abnormal. You never stop and wonder if there’s something odd, something paranormal about your glasses, or a t-shirt or your shoes or anything else. They’re just so clearly, obviously ordinary you never even bother recognising it. That’s how I felt about the ring, it was normal, ordinary, not-at-all weird or dangerous.

It wasn’t until everything was already over that I linked it to the… accidents. If you could call them that. The injuries, more like.

I’d not been hugely clumsy before. Sure I got the occasional scratch or bruise from clipping against a table or what-not, but it wasn’t a daily thing, barely even a monthly thing. And I tended to remember what I’d done to get them. Catching my arm in a door, for red welt than ran from elbow to wrist; tripping and scraping my knees; stubbed toes on doors and rogue trolleys while shopping for bruises on the hips. More desk corners walked into than I’d care to admit, and the occasionally cupboard or low ceiling to the head in places I wasn’t familiar with.

The normal sort of stuff, you know? Annoying, but just a part of life. It happens and you swear and move on.

But in early 2013, I seemed to get a lot clumsier. I’d find scratches down my legs and arms, bruises across my ribs when I got changed at night. They weren’t bad, just a few red spots or a slight blue tinge. Just… I’d swear every time that I’d done nothing to earn them.

I didn’t think to much about it though. I just assumed I’d gotten a little clumsier, maybe a little less observant. It was an obvious explanation, I didn’t really wonder if there was anything deeper to it.

Who would?

Then there was the morning after Alice’s party. It was her 40th, so a load of us went out, painting the town up, like we hadn’t for a few years. Hit up a couple of the clubs, partied on until almost dawn. I drank way, way too much, so my memory’s pretty fuzzy from the point that we started doing shots onwards. I remember a couple of flashes – cocktails in pineapples, dancing to Mamma Mia, the streets dusted with grey pre-dawn light. I don’t remember getting into a cab, and then stumbling into bed still dressed.

It was a Sunday, so I slept in late. I think I had a weird dream, I’ve very vague recollections of running down a corridor, feeling like something was chasing me. But I woke up in the early afternoon to a searing pain in my face. My nose stung like crazy, and my mouth felt weird… too large and too wet. I fumbled for the switch of the lamp on my bedside cabinet, groaning as the light set my hangover roaring and gazed groggily at my pillow.

The pastel yellow fabric was soaked with hot, sticky, red blood, and there were two shiny white teeth sat on the centre.

That was enough to get me up, hangover and pain or not. I stumbled into the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror.

I was a mess.

A thick, shiny ring of swollen purple flesh encircled my left eye; my nose was a horrid, crooked joke and blood was caked pretty much everywhere. Matted into my hair, smeared down the side of my face. My mouth was still dripping with it, a fine trickle of crimson red that tasted of iron. I peeled back my lower lip with a finger, and sure enough I was missing my two front teeth.

I think I screamed.

Then I fixed a couple of ice packs and took a couple of ibuprofen and called whoever I could remember having been about the night before, trying to work out what had possibly happened. I assumed there had been a fight or something, and I’d somehow gotten caught in it, and had just forgotten.

Except none of them had any clue. They all said I’d been completely fine when we’d split up, that I’d gotten into a taxi with Lucy, and had gotten out by my house completely fine. I hadn’t been hurt at all.

I called the police at this point. My hands were shaking as I keyed the number into the landline, slick fingers skating off the buttons. The idea that I’d been attacked and had no recall…

They came quickly and were very kind as they took my statement. Promised to dig into it, chase down whatever leads they could get, but given the lack of CCTV, they weren’t sure how far it would go. They did take some DNA swabs, but obviously that wasn’t successful.

How could it be, when there was no attacker? Or at least no physical attacker? One of flesh and blood.

I remember being very scared. Not wanting to be alone. I handed in my notice on my little one-person flat that night, moving in with a friend. I stopped drinking, stopped going out. I almost became a bit of a recluse.

I thought it would help. I thought it would stop a repeat.

I couldn’t have been more wrong, could I? Because it was the ring, and it didn’t care who I was with, where I was. I just didn’t know it at the time.

You seem certain this is related to the ring. How?

I’ll get to it. As I said, I didn’t have any reason to at the time, but given what happened later…

The injuries started to get more frequent, and worse. I remember fingernails falling out, deep lacerations opening spontaneously in my arms and legs. I went to the doctors, and they ran a whole battery of tests – there are skin conditions that can cause really nasty injuries from minimal pressure on the skin, but those are all blisters – but they all came up negative. I was under observation for a week or two at one point, but of course nothing happened then.

The doctors pretty much gave up after a few months. I got very good at sterilising and bandaging wounds. I can still do a lot of it one handed.

I pretty much gave up hope myself, resigning myself to the fact that this was just my life by this point. I tried all the alternative therapies I could get my hands on; I’m pretty sure I fell for several scams. I even tried the witch that Alice recommended, who had apparently been very helpful when she’d had her mirror issue. None of us had really believed Alice about all that when it happened, but I figured, what the hell, it couldn’t hurt to give it a go. Maybe Alice had been telling the truth, I couldn’t really claim Alice’s story about her mirror images disappearing was too far-fetched when I was dealing with all of my own stuff.

Anyway, that trip was an… experience. The witch didn’t live in a small dingy, cramped basement flat that I was expecting, that smelt of too much incense and lit by flickering candles. No, the place Alice led me to was on Princes Street, practically opposite the Scottish National Gallery. It was on the top floor, a big, spacious apartment with lots of windows and natural lighting. I remember there being a small room with a glass window that stretched almost across the entire wall that looked out onto Princes Street, a single armchair placed in front of the window, and a small shelving unit next to it was filled with binoculars and telescopes. The witch shut the door into that room very quickly as I peered in, and gave me a very pointed look that conveyed just how much I was intruding.

She was a short woman, lithe with close cropped black hair. She introduced herself as Harriet, and didn’t offer a hand to shake, just gestured me into a small side room. Alice didn’t come in with me, taking a seat in the hallway and giving me a weak smile.

This room was slightly more like I was expecting, but not by much, the walls were at least covered in bookshelves stacked high with heavy leather-bound books, and there was a tarot set on the table in the centre. But it was still well lit, both by several lamps and by the afternoon sun streaming in through a skylight. There was also a picture of Harriet and another woman kissing on the table with the tarot deck, and it was all very clean.

I took a seat in a leather armchair, Harriet sat across from me, staring intently at me. She asked what my problem was. I started to explain, gesturing at my scars, and even unbandaging the most recent cut on my hand. She was very quiet the entire time, looking at me.

I’m not certain if she blinked once during my story.

When I finished, the final words fumbling out of my mouth she got up, still silent and pulled two books down from a shelf behind me. She sat back down, muttering to herself, still not saying anything to me, but furiously cross referencing between the two tomes. I could have asked what she was looking up, but it seemed… wrong… to interrupt her.

Eventually, she pushed the books to one side and picked up the tarot deck, shuffling it with a practised hand. She dealt out three cards out, face down, splaying them out on the table in front of her. The rest of the deck, she placed carefully back down next to her picture.

‘Choose one,’ she commanded.

I reached out, my hand hovering over the cards, wondering which to choose. Finally, I picked up the middle one, flipping over the heavy card to reveal it.

It was blank.

Harriet nodded, then gestured to the two remaining cards. I didn’t need anywhere near as much time to choose this time, slapping the left card down onto the wood of the table.

It was also blank.

A thin line appeared between her eyebrows, her lips pursed.

I flipped over the final card.

Blank.

Harriet pushed the deck towards me. ‘Draw.’

I turned over the top card. Blank. So was the next one. And the next one. And the five after that.

She pulled the deck out of my hands, turning it over and spreading the cards out across the table face up.

All blank.

She closed her eyes, breathing out slowly, then stood and opened the door for me.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I can find nothing on you. You are scared, but you have not been touched by fear. I cannot help. I do not even know if there is anything to help.’

I’m ashamed to admit that I cursed at her, I swore at her, I shouted a lot.

I was scared. So many people had given up on me by this point. This was my last hope. My only hope, and her rejection sounded like a death sentence. So yes, I took my frustration out on her.

She took it all with a small, sad smile and just kept apologising. ‘I’m sorry. There is no fear on you, there is nothing to help with.’

She kept saying that. Kept saying ‘fear’ oddly, as if it was a name.

I hated her in that moment. I hated that she was content for me to be ripped apart by whatever my life had become. That she was just going to stand by and let me die, because I was now certain that that was how this entire thing was going to end. How could it not?

Alice eventually pulled me out of the room, apologising to Harriet and taking me home. She wasn’t impressed.

I retreated into my bed, waiting for what I understood to be the inevitable now. I just sort of drifted, for the next several weeks. I’d been signed off from work for stress for several months, so there wasn’t much for me to do. I found myself sitting in bed in the dark, just contemplating the end. I ate and I drank, and I slept a bit, but mostly, I just sat, waiting, in the dark.

I think that’s why I noticed it.

I’d fiddle with my ring as a way to keep my hands busy, tuning it over and over in hands, playing a complicated game weaving it between my fingers. It was a little bit mesmerising, really. But it was because of the dark I noticed it.

It shone sometimes, the gem taking on a faint, ethereal glow. It was barely anything, but with the constant darkness in my room, it was enough.

Then one night, what I’d been waiting for finally happened. It started with an itch just behind my ear, then a rising pressure against my forehead. I felt the skin of my scalp stretch and burst, blood trickling down into my eyes. Then a grinding noise as the pressure mounted, my very skull starting to cave.

I looked down at my hands, vision blurry, my hands shaking as I felt bile rising in my throat.

The gem was burning with a glistening light.

And I knew. I just knew, knew that this was what had caused me years of agony. Was going to kill me.

I hurled it away from me.

The moment it left my hands, the light snapped out. The pressure lifted from my head.

And I passed out.

I woke up in hospital almost a month later, to be told I was exceedingly lucky to have survived, that if Alice had found me any later I would almost certainly be dead. It still took months of surgery to reconstruct everything, and flights will always be interesting. But I survived.

I survived.

The doctors kept asking if I remembered what had happened. I lied and told them no. That’s what I told the police as well.

I told Alice not to go into my room, and under no circumstances to pick up the ring. She thought it was an odd request, but she agreed, and the ring was still where I’d thrown it when I was finally discharged. I locked it away in that box, careful not to touch it again, and then shut the box away in the attic.

That was a little under a year ago, and I have had no mysterious injuries since. Nor have I worn any jewellery.

Statement ends.

Well that was a tale. There are definitely worrying under tones to the entire thing, but I am concerned with the fact that it both begins and ends with a head injury. Not to mention the numerous signs of untreated trauma reactions.

Martin managed to get a hold of Ms McAver’s medical records and there is mention of several memory issues caused by concussion and other related brain trauma from both the first and last injury Ms McAver suffered. It seems she spent a lot more time in hospital in both cases than she actually remembers. There are also references to numerous injuries in the intervening time which required professional treatment. On no occasion could Ms McAver provide an explanation for how she got them. The tests she mentioned are listed, and are as she said extensive, testing for haemophilia, bullous pemphigoid, epidermolysis bullosa and many others.

All tests came back negative. As did the time she spent under observation.

Tim got the police reports for Ms McAver’s attacks. There are actually two – one for each head injury. There is little more in them than we already know, except a note that all signs are that Ms McAver was injured with in her flat, as there is no blood on any of the doors, yet in neither case is there any sign of forced entry.

I could push further, but given everything else that’s going on… well, it seems like a bit of a waste of time. I would in fact have written it off completely as a product of a traumatic head injury, if it weren’t for the fact that it only recorded on the magnetic tape.

Maybe it’s just that encounter with this Harriet character. There’s something about her, certainly… More talk of ‘fears’ at least.

Ms McAver left the ring with us. I will pass it on to Artefacts storage at least. Let Research decide if they want to waste time investigating. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am half way through series 2, with some allowed looks at the wiki.


End file.
